


I've Lost Myself (And I Am Nowhere To Be Found)

by LilShitWayne, shakespearedidnothavecumsh0ts (loginhasbeentaken)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Everything Hurts, F/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6413302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilShitWayne/pseuds/LilShitWayne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/loginhasbeentaken/pseuds/shakespearedidnothavecumsh0ts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's gone, but Malia doesn't know it yet</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Lost Myself (And I Am Nowhere To Be Found)

**Author's Note:**

> Immediately after the events of the finale (5x20)

The blood on her claws had long dried but the word her biological mother had uttered never left her mind.

“ _Parasite_ ”

Over and over again. The word hurt even more than her wounds- those had healed long ago, but the scars from Karin's words would never leave her.

She rubbed her index finger and her thumb. The blood was drying out and getting sticky, ready to become solid.

Malia let her mind wander. Inside the house, upstairs, Henry was asleep. She could hear him snoring. She could remember the countless missed calls and her father probably went to sleep thinking his daughter could be dead.

Once again, she felt like a parasite. Sucking the life out of everything. Out of her mother - the real one, not _Karin_ -, out of her baby sister... and now from Henry. Devouring them.

Malia didn't hear the footsteps, but she smelt him.

"Rough night?" Theo was limping toward her. He was covered in dirt and something black that reminded her of a collection of slasher movies Stiles forced her to see. His hair was sticky to his forehead and skin so white that Malia wondered if she was seeing a corpse.

"You tell me," she said giving him a one over.

"Not as bad as yours," he said sitting next to her.

"Have you seen yourself?" Malia asked cracking a small smile.

"You're sad. I can tell," Theo said cupping her face. "And you're covered in blood," he said wiping away a speck of blood that had taken up residence on her face.

"That's what happens when you kill your mom" Malia shrugged, passing a hand over her face to clean the blood, but from the humidity of her fingers Malia knew that she had only smeared it.

"How was it?"

She didn't want to answer him. To need him. But Theo Raeken was the worst person she knew - the worst one alive, at least - and there was some comfort into knowing he had no place to call her a monster. "I felt in control. I felt relieved... And then I felt empty"

Theo bit down a smile "I killed them all" he whispered, the night almost swallowing his words "My sister... My parents... My fake parents... My pack..."

His body count was bigger than she had been expecting, but Malia wasn't surprised. She wiped away a drop of dark liquid from between his eyes and let out a small, weak smile "You're a terrible person... "

"I am"

"But I am one too" she leaned in. Into his smell of nothingness and pain. Leaned until she was pressing her lips over his, shushing away whatever he could say "You stink"

"Hell does that to a person" Theo shrugged, not kissing her back, not pulling away either.

She didn't press further, Lord knows Theo Raeken was cryptic as hell. She was more interested in what she was feeling. The emptiness was slowly being replaced by desire and she loved being able to feel; that was all she wanted. Something to remind her that she was human and not a monster.

Malia pulled him closer, her fingers - claws still out and scratching him - tugging on his wrecked shirt and she bit down on his bottom lip, climbing on his lap and kissing Theo until her lips hurt and until her heart seemed to be beating again.

"Malia..." Theo whispered and there was desolation in his voice "No"

"Yes" She stood up, pulling him by the shirt and wrapping arms around his neck "Yes, just tonight.... just for now"

"Let me get you cleaned up first," Theo said tucking her hair behind her ear.

"Okay," Malia nodded.

She was surprised at his tenderness but nonetheless took his hand and led him to her bathroom.

Theo pushed her gently against the box wall and pulled her shirt off, hands so soft that it was almost a breeze. Malia let out a breathless gasp when his fingers brushed the bruise in her stomach. Theo looked up, kneeling before her as he opened her jeans "Am I hurting you?"

"No" She pushed his hands away, tugged his shirt off, and turned on the shower. The pressured water hit his back and sprayed on her, the warmth  almost as if clinging to her skin.  Theo pressed his mouth between her thighs and kissed his way up, lips so gentle it was agony.

"Am I hurting you?"

He was always hurting her. He was a wound in her physique and a wound in her emotional. A person she almost trusted and a person who sold her to the woman who called her a "parasite".

"Yes"

"I'm sorry" Theo breathed in her neck "I'm so sorry"

He was apologizing for more than just the physical pain he thought he was causing her; he was apologizing for it all. He'd never intended to hurt her- the things he felt for her were so strong and so intense that he felt it within his very core. Was it love? He couldn't tell; he knew nothing of love. He'd been numb his entire life.

Malia intertwined her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer and brushing her lips on the side of his jaw, tasting salt in her tongue and letting the shower water drown the taste away.

She wanted to exorcise them both. To kiss him like he was some kind of beacon to the demons inside of her... But Theo Raeken was darkness and the only thing she was kissing was a death certificate.

Malia didn't realize she was talking in his mouth until Theo rested his forehead against hers, rubbing soap on her back almost as if calming a baby, and smiled "You're not"

"What?"

"A parasite. You're not a parasite" there was no more assurance, neither did she need one. Malia wanted to believe his words, but she kept wondering for whom he would sell her next. It would hurt more this time.

"Am I not?" the words got strangled in her throat and Theo kissed them away "I've got more blood in my hands than all of my pack"

"Not more than me"

"It doesn't comfort me"

He shrugged, passed soap on her collarbones and let his fingers run to contours of her bones. She was the only one who he never wished to hurt, the only one he ever regret to touch.

"I'm scared one day they will see who I am..." Malia whispered in his cheek, nose brushing against his skin and she was drowning into him.

"They've seen you already"

"I'm not Stiles. I planned to kill her... I wanted to kill her."

"You are not a monster, Malia. Trust me... I'd know"

"I may not have intended to kill my family but I wanted to kill _her_ … I liked it. I took her power and it felt good."

"There's nothing wrong with being powerful."

"Am I really powerful if I feel this weak?" she said allowing her tears to mix with the warm water.

"It's okay," Theo said kissing her temple and stroking her hair.

"I don't want to feel this way," she said against his chest.

"One day... You'll wake up, and it won't hurt" Theo lied, kissing her head and wrapping arms around her. Malia was pulling him down and in no second they were sitting under the hot spray. Her face buried in his chest as if he was a shelter... home. But he wasn't much more than the empty cave in which she used to hide her toys. Dark, abandoned... lost.

"How long? How long until it stopped aching?" She was asking him as if Theo felt remorse. He didn't. The only regret was meeting her... crossing her path and making her trust him. And it hadn't stopped hurting yet.

"Not long. You're strong. You'll pull through" He kissed her forehead, then the bridge of her nose and then her mouth, feeling the water slide down her face and he would almost believe those were tears.

"What if I don't... What if become..."

He smiled on her mouth, pulling her close. " _What if I become broken and fail like you?_ " was implicit in her whispers and he knew why she got under skin so easily. She could read him like an open book, even when she had made the mistake of believing him.

"If there was any possibility of you becoming me... You'd have already. You're not a failure"

"You're not a failure either" It was as much of a lie as the mouthed "I love you" that was on the back of his head and Theo believed on it. He clung on her words like they were salvation.

Theo didn't answer; instead he tightened his grip on her as if he was afraid she was just an illusion- a manifestation of his deepest thoughts and desires. He allowed himself this simple pleasure; he knew he didn't deserve simple pleasures but he had always been a slave to his desires- he desired Malia Tate.

It wasn’t until they were both shaking and the water had turned cold that Malia raised her head from his chest and looked up, dark eyes blinking against the humidity and red lips parted in the eagerness of a kiss.

He didn’t bother drying off, neither did her. She sat down on the bed, watching cautiously and promptly wrapping herself around him, shivering and pressing a kiss on the crook of his neck.

Malia was dizzy with trauma and pain and _him_. She knew there was no reason to lean on his embrace and that this simple act would have countless consequences. Starting by the pack’s anger and ending on her own self hatred. But tonight was outside the world, outside the time and Malia didn’t care. “Don’t leave” she whispered against his flesh, legs wrapped around him to keep Theo on her bed, to keep his warmth between her thighs and his hands well placed on her back.

She heard his sigh, felt a kiss on the top of her head and then before he could answer, Malia interrupted him “Don’t abandon me. Not tonight…”

Theo pulled her closer “Not for tonight” he agreed. There was a loop in his reply and she knew it. Instead of saying anything Malia pressed a kiss on his mouth and didn’t pull away, squeezing eyes shut and forcing her demons to go to sleep. Letting the devil lullaby her in a dreamless night.

His pulse and gentle breathing awakened something within her and his warmth called to her. The closer she was to him the more human she felt. Maybe it was because Theo was more of a monster than she was or maybe it was because Malia felt like she could be better with him.

She nestled her head in the crook of his neck and began littering his pulse point with open mouthed kisses.

Theo felt a shiver run down his spine. Her mouth was an electric touch in the night and he pulled her up, kissing her lips.

"Malia"

"Uhm" She rolled on the bed to be on top of him, blankets falling from her shoulders to her waist and Theo let his eyes follow the soft curves of her body. Nothing on her appearance was harsh. Malia's body was the perfect complement to her personality.

"No" He smiled sadly, kissing the center of her palms and pulling her to his chest, never once letting her get out from the top of him "Not now"

"If not now..." then when?, he didn't know nor did her. What Malia did know was that it felt way too much like a goodbye and it was like departing of a possibility. An almost... waving goodbye to a "could have been".

"Sleep" Theo sighed, closing eyes "Sleep and tomorrow will be better"

"It couldn't be worse"

* * *

She was wrong, it was way worse. Theo Raeken was gone. The only evidence that he was ever there was his scent on her skin and pillows. When Scott had told what had happened she found it hard to believe - mainly because it sounded like a rip off of a bullshit horror movie - but Malia also didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe that he was gone. Was last night a dream? Was he ever there? She hated to feel good around him, and hated to miss him.

Theo Raeken was a liar. He was a liar when he pulled the trigger, he was a liar when he kissed promises in her skin and he was a liar when he left.

But she was stronger than him. And therefore, she was better.

"We're going to be fine" Malia smiled to Lydia, intertwining their fingers and pretending she hadn't murdered her own mother two days ago. "We'll be fine"

She was a better liar than him.


End file.
